Chapter 14
The Segah Ballroom in the Four Season Hotel in the heart of Baku, Azerbaijan shimmered with gold-leafed opulence and imported chandeliers, but Savannah barely noticed.
She stood with a crystal flute of water in her hand, her third of the night, ignoring the champagne tray that passed by.
Her dress, a fitted sapphire gown with delicate beadwork, clung to her like an elegant shell. Beautiful, yet claustrophobic.
They had just finished another stellar performance on the grand stage of the Azerbaijan State Academic Opera and Ballet Theater.
Her own performance had gone better than she’d expected, given her exhaustion.
But her fingers had remembered every note, her energy had been high, and her nerves had been at a minimum.
She attributed her newfound enthusiasm entirely to Sawyer.
And the orgasm he’d helped her achieve.
Yet here, under the calculated gaze of politicians and foreign dignitaries, she felt a different pressure mounting.
Small talk was not her forte, as she’d pathetically learned over the past week and a half.
You’re not a diplomat. You’re a solo pianist. She repeated the thought like a mantra, trying to slow her nervous thoughts.
Solo being the operative word, her chosen profession was a solitary pursuit.
The lessons in diplomacy the Senator had tried to drill into her obviously never took.
Consequently, these events proved to be exceptionally challenging for her, marked by moments of frustration and self-doubt.
She found herself overwhelmed with the weight of expectation pressing down on her.
The constant pressure, the bitter taste of failure, it all left her feeling defeated.
A translator from the cultural ministry smiled politely and leaned in to whisper something, but she barely caught it. Her head ached. The room buzzed with a dozen languages. Every camera seemed pointed in her direction. And she wanted to scream.
She looked for Sawyer. His presence always steadied her, but he was currently across the room near the security detail, eyes sweeping the exits. Focused and alert, as always.
That’s when the lights dimmed slightly. The buzz in the room faltered. Then came a deafening crash, the sound echoing through the room.
The main doors slammed open with a violent echo. Dozens of people turned. The music stopped mid-note.
A dozen or more masked figures strode in, dressed in black from boots to hoods, carrying rifles. Panic rippled instantly, suppressed only by confusion and disbelief. Security hesitated when the lead invader fired into the ceiling, shattering a chandelier in a downpour of glass.
Piercing screams erupted, overlapping with the shattering of glass and the thunderous crash of the chandelier as it plummeted to the floor, sending everyone scrambling for cover.
“Everyone down!” the leader shouted in accented English. “Now! Hands where we can see them!”
Savannah froze as the crowd sank to the floor. She stumbled to her knees, her mind a spiral of dread. Her eyes found Sawyer, already moving, calculating, but blocked by a wall of bodies.
The lead figure stepped into the center of the ballroom and removed his hood. His face was angular, thin, and furious. His voice was low, but sharp as a blade.
“You—” he pointed to one of the senior U.S. diplomats “—you helped fund the regime that butchered our fathers. And you—” his eyes snapped to Savannah, “—daughter of the man who smiled and shook hands with the tyrant who signed our brothers’ execution orders . . .”
Her breath caught. The Senator? Her heart pounded like a war drum.
“…And now you smile and speak of unity through music.” He spat the words. “Do you think we are so easily pacified?”
Savannah’s lips parted, but no words came.
“You play for peace,” the man continued, “but your silence is a song of collusion.”
More figures filtered in. The exits sealed. Gasps turned to quiet sobs.
Savannah clutched the hem of her gown. Her chest tightened.
The phrase he used. That man had warned them.
Back at the hangar that first day. That man had warned they weren’t safe.
That she wasn’t safe. But no amount of warning could prepare her for this moment.
Trapped, surrounded, used as a symbol for sins she hadn’t committed but couldn’t deny.
Sawyer, she thought, frantically searching the room. She couldn’t spot him anymore. Where had he gone?
Suddenly, the lead terrorist crouched in front of her. His eyes locked onto her like a sniper’s crosshairs. “Daughter of the man who sold our country’s soul for oil and silence. You come here in the name of peace?”
Whispers hissed around the room. Her name was spoken like a sin.
“Music cannot undo murder,” the man snarled. “But tonight, the world will hear the truth. And see what your diplomacy cost us.”
Her heart clawed at her ribs as she stared into the dark, malevolent eyes that reflected a chilling pain.
The bottomless darkness in those eyes, swirling with a palpable sense of perceived horrors, sparked a visceral fear that seized her, a fear that tasted like ash and felt like a physical blow.
She couldn’t look away. She could barely breathe.
And it seemed as if the terrorists had focused all their ire on her.
“Your sainted senator thinks this tour will clean his conscience, but it won’t. Some of us lost everything. And we remember. Your country’s sins will only be washed away with blood.”
A chill ran through her as he lifted the deadly-looking handgun and pointed it a bystander nearby.
With one earsplitting shot, the poor man was knocked back.
It wasn’t until she saw a crimson pool of liquid seep across the floor that Savannah understood the man had been shot and was most likely dead.
Murdered by a man who had revenge in his heart and had no compunctions about punishing the innocent.
“That is just the start. Another will die in thirty minutes unless our demands are met. And every half hour after that.”
“An. . .and what are your demands,” Savannah whispered.
“Senator McNabney’s head on a plate.
Oh God. Sawyer. Where are you?